


Pillow Talk

by aunt_zelda



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Pillow Talk, Polyamorous Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 04:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2095440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-coital, Drax tells Peter about his wife and daughter; Peter later tells Drax about his mother and grandfather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Talk

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for this kink meme post:
> 
> http://guardian-kink.livejournal.com/1806.html?thread=6158#t6158  
> Drax telling Peter about his wife and daughter, and Peter in return telling Drax about his mother and grandfather.
> 
> Just saw the movie this afternoon, hopefully I got the characters ok, and remembered all the details correctly.

“I think my wife would have liked you.” Drax says, after the fourth time they’ve had sex.

Peter, still used to the idea of big burly men not having any interest in other men unless they’re in prison, had been surprised when Drax had propositioned him after a battle a few weeks back. He’d almost rejected Drax outright on instinct, after years of getting beat up in a bar by aliens whose body language he’d been grossly misreading. 

Then he’d thought it over, realized that Drax couldn’t possibly lie, especially not about this sort of thing, and agreed. And so far, so good. 

“What?” Peter’s heard a lot of strange stuff from his partners after sex, but never something like this.

“My wife,” Drax repeats. “She would have liked you. You are skinny, yes, and an odd color, and your mane is …” Drax tugs on Peter’s hair and eyes it critically. “… well, it is a mane. But she would have judged you a suitable mate, if she had met you now. You are an honorable man, a brave warrior, one who has faced down great enemies and lived to tell the tales.”

Peter has no idea what he’s supposed to say here. He’s flying blind and, weirdly, his dick is starting to take a kind of interest in this conversation. He’s wondering what Drax’s wife looked like, if she was bigger than Drax, brawnier, strong arms to carry Peter away with, massive breasts for Peter to smother himself in. These are thoughts he never would have allowed himself to think, if Drax hadn’t started this weird conversation. 

“Oh?” Peter settles on, at last, because he has to say _something_.

“Yes. I do not think she would have liked to breed with you, though. Your offspring might have suffered sickness, I do not think my people have ever bred with a Terran before. You could have helped to raise our young though.” Drax’s expression softens, and his eyes grow distant. “My daughter was just old enough for her first markings, you could have held her left hand and I her right, during the ritual, while my wife cut the designs into her shoulders. To help her be brave, through the pain.”

Peter feels his face reddening. He’s had a few one-night stands who’d talked about kids, but they were always out of Peter’s life by morning, or after the weekend at most, and these sorts of detailed conversations had never taken place. 

“I bet she’d have been brave enough all on her own. Wouldn’t need some weird Terran helping her out.” Peter offers.

Drax smiles, and it is a smile only slightly tinged with sadness, not the pained grimaces he sometimes displays. “That is kind of you to say. She was very brave. She would have been a great warrior someday, like her mother.”

“And you,” Peter says promptly.

Drax nods. “I hope that I honor their memories. But my wife was the superior warrior by far.”

“I’m sorry I never got to see her fight,” Peter says, and it’s the honest truth.

Drax laughs. “You would not have seen her, Peter, she would have blurred to Terran eyes, she moved so quickly.”

“Quicker than you?” Peter asks. 

Drax claps an arm around Peter’s waist and swiftly pulls him down onto the bed. “Yes.”

~*~

“Have I ever told you about my mother?”

It’s after the sixth time – seventh time? – they’re lying in Peter’s bunk, sweaty and exhausted, new stains cooling on their skin. They’ll take a shower soon, together or one at a time, but for now they’re relaxing. Peter wouldn’t call it cuddling exactly, Drax is a lot gentler in bed that Peter would have expected, but he’s not exactly a cuddler. 

“No, you have not.” Drax responds. 

Peter could leave it there. Drax wouldn’t follow up or pry, he’d just think Peter was asking a question, and be satisfied with the answer. 

“The day they … took me,” Peter coughs. He doesn’t like to talk about those early days. He still has nightmares about huddling in a corner of the Ravager ship, the first aliens he’d ever seen in his life licking their lips and gnashing their teeth like fairy tale monsters. “That was the day she died.”

Drax blinks. “It was not the expected time for the death of one her age?”

Peter isn’t sure how Drax can tell, but he nods. “Yeah. She was sick. Really sick. Kind of a … it made your body weak and sort of start to waste away. It was horrible.” Peter squeezes his eyes shut briefly, then continues. “She was in a hospital; there was nothing else they could do for her. I know that now. But then, I was just a little kid, I was still thinking … maybe she’ll make it, maybe the doctors will try some new medicine and she’ll be ok … and then all of the sudden she was saying goodbye and telling me to hold her hand and … and I couldn’t …” Peter shakes his head, vision swimming. “And I ran outside and then there was this light … this force dragging me up … and then I was on a Ravager ship.”

There is silence for a comfortable stretch of time. Peter rubs his face on the blanket. Even now, so far away from that night, it hurts. Peter doubts it will ever truly stop hurting him.

Drax lays a hand on his shoulder, squeezes just hard enough to be a comfortable pressure. 

Peter puts his hand over Drax’s. They sit there for a few minutes, before Peter shrugs off Drax’s hand lightly.

“And what of your other family members? Or was your mother your only?” Drax asks.

“Oh, there were more. Mostly cousins and aunts I didn’t know very well. My … my grandfather, he was the one who was going to … to raise me, when she … when my mother was gone.” Peter sighs, leaning back. “Sometimes I wonder about that, what it would have been like if he’d raised me, instead of Yondu.”

“Doubtless you would have become far more honorable in half the time,” Drax says.

Peter manages a laugh, and nudges Drax in the side – a gesture that took some explaining but one that Drax has finally warmed up to. “Thanks.”

“Thank you for telling me of your family, as I have told you of mine.” Drax tilts his head to the side. “I do not know what Terrans do for their dead. I light flames in cups when I can, and burn their birth-season flowers on the anniversary of their deaths. If it is not inappropriate to your culture, you are welcome to light a flame for your mother when I light flames for my wife and daughter.”

Peter swallows, telling himself that he won’t cry, not again. “Thank you. I … I think she’d like that.”

It becomes a ritual for the both of them. Periodically they light stubs of candles in tiny glass cups, and on planets where there are fields, they gather sprigs of flowers to burn.


End file.
